Steve Price: The time Malcolm Turnbull may have fibbed to my face

Malcolm Turnbull calling PM Scott Morrison a liar is not only unAustralian, it’s disingenuous coming from a man who I believe may have fibbed himself.

Steve Price

@StevePriceMedia

4 min read

November 5, 2021 - 2:30PM

If former PM Malcolm Turnbull is going to accuse current PM Scott Morrison of lying, he should be ‘squeaky clean’ in that regard himself. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

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In early 2008 Malcolm Turnbull, who this week accused Prime Minister Scott Morrison of having a reputation for telling lies, told me one to my face.

After winning his seat at the Kevin 07 federal election that saw John Howard lose office, Turnbull put his hand up to lead the party but lost in a party room vote to Brendan Nelson by

three votes.

Early the next year – 2008 – he had plenty of time on his hands and was quietly building support for another crack at the opposition leader’s job.

He agreed one morning to an in-studio interview with me at Sydney’s 2UE. The big political issue at the time was a plan by the newly-installed Rudd Government to introduce a new tax on alcopop drinks. These things had taken off among young people and were basically just vodka and lemonade.

Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek was charged with selling the tax idea and joined Mr Turnbull and myself at the St Leonards’ studio for a debate. I remember as the discussion unfolded that there was some digital interference in my headphones.

Back then, mobile phones or other messaging devices needed to be turned off during live radio because of this problem.

Malcolm Turnbull has accused Scott Morrison of deliberate deception but appears to have fibbed in the past over having a mobile phone in a recording studio. Picture: Supplied

During an ad break, I quizzed Tanya and then Malcolm if either of them had a mobile phone switched on.

Both said ‘no’ and continued on with the chat; with me commenting to Tanya that I believed all the government’s tax increase on fizzy alcohol drinks was doing was forcing the DIY practice of buying bulk vodka and mixing it themselves.

With the debate over, I threw to an ad break and walked the pair out of the studio, still puzzled about what had been causing the signal interference.

As I turned to go back into the broadcast studio, I noticed something under the chair Mr Turnbull had been sitting on.

I bent down and picked up what was then the favoured communication device of federal politicians, a BlackBerry phone.

Picking it up, I went after Malcolm and said ‘this must be yours’.

Turnbull then took the phone and left.

My producer and I couldn’t believe he had seemingly lied about having the BlackBerry on in the studio and also seemingly dumped it on the floor when I queried if anyone had a phone.

It’s always sat uneasily with me, why he had the phone in the studio and whether it was used as an aid in the interview.

Does it really matter all that much that a then opposition MP had a phone in an interview and then denied it was on, before it was found on the floor? Probably not ... until this week.

If you are going to side with a foreign country in an attack on your Prime Minister - given you yourself used to hold that job - you need to be pretty squeaky clean yourself.

Putting that unAustralian Turnbull attack to one side – as terrible as it is – his personal accusation that Scott Morrison lied to him regularly makes that minor incident, that he won’t

even remember, very telling.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: Adam Taylor

The exact quotes this week make his deception of me back then, and the Morrison hatred, even worse.

He said he ‘had no doubt the French leader had been deceived’.

He went on to allege that he had the same experience as Prime Minister when he worked with Mr Morrison.

Mr Turnbull said “oh, he’s lied to me on many occasions. Scott has always had a reputation for telling lies”.

Not content with calling Australia’s Prime Minister - outside a gathering of global leaders - a reputational liar, he called him dishonest and disingenuous and lacking credibility.

Winding up to attack the man who took his job away from him after it became obvious he would lose the next election, he even said Morrison’s lying reflected on all Australians.

It was an unprecedented attack on a sitting Prime Minister by a former leader.

The hatred Turnbull has for Morrison clearly runs deep and hitching a ride on a billionaire’s private jet to a climate conference where he could attack him must have been too attractive an offer to pass up.

Turnbull then joined the pile-on about the dud French submarine deal he as PM put together, in part to save Liberal seats in South Australia.

As Mr Morrison said, during a refuelling stop in the Middle East on his way back from Glasgow, he is always very careful not to be overly critical of former holders of the office of PM.

Malcolm Turnbull’s attack on PM Scott Morrison was unprecedented. Picture: Phil Noble

I’ve written before of Mr Morrison, saying I think has a tin ear on many issues - like going to Hawaii during the bushfires and initially agreeing to strip SAS commandos of meritorious

service citations – and that he has a glass jaw.

I doubt, despite the Turnbull claims though, that he is a reputational liar.

Malcolm, on the other hand, in one immaterial, brief and long-ago incident gave me reason to question whether what he was telling you was the truth.

Why he wouldn’t simply have said ‘yep, sorry mate, I had my BlackBerry on and that’s causing the buzz’, still puzzles me.

And whenever I encountered Mr Turnbull after that, either professionally or socially, the device under the chair incident came back to me.

Not a national security incident or international foreign affairs scandal but a tiny insight into a man’s character, especially when that man starts accusing our PM of not telling the truth.